britannica to stop printing books

[ejp626]

My guess is that any subject that's in Britannica will have a well researched and community vetted Wikipedia entry that's just fine. I think the dangers of shoddy work or possible misinformation on Wikipedia generally come in the obscure entries that aren't well reviewed by other contributors.

The study in Nature had only to do with Science entries in Brittanica and Wikipedia. There are many non-obscure topics that are not in the area of science. It could be that the scientific community is contributing to Wikipedia articles, but that is not the same as saying Wikipedia is as accurate overall as EB or as well written and documented.

I would agree it is not as well-written, but actually I think it is better documented and certainly more transparently documented than EB. For the purposes of most people, Wikipedia is as good as and often better than EB. Of all the major changes facing us in the new digital future, I am not that chagrined by the loss of EB or even World Book.

[Neal Pomea]

I would agree it is not as well-written, but actually I think it is better documented and certainly more transparently documented than EB. For the purposes of most people, Wikipedia is as good as and often better than EB. Of all the major changes facing us in the new digital future, I am not that chagrined by the loss of EB or even World Book.

I disagree. It is not important to me or transparent at all to know that entries were written by IP address numbers and user names like nedsexy, petuniablossom, etc. compared to knowing that EP was written with the brand name of a publisher with a pedigree. The same goes for a host of other traditional reference book publishers. It seems to me that we are throwing that out for the sake of crowd sourcing, showing little regard or appreciation for the publishing and vetting process.

I say that as someone who has contributed to Wikipedia entries myself. Witnessing the process first hand makes me largely distrust it.

[ejp626]

I would agree it is not as well-written, but actually I think it is better documented and certainly more transparently documented than EB. For the purposes of most people, Wikipedia is as good as and often better than EB. Of all the major changes facing us in the new digital future, I am not that chagrined by the loss of EB or even World Book.

I disagree. It is not important to me or transparent at all to know that entries were written by IP address numbers and user names like nedsexy, petuniablossom, etc. compared to knowing that EP was written with the brand name of a publisher with a pedigree. The same goes for a host of other traditional reference book publishers. It seems to me that we are throwing that out for the sake of crowd sourcing, showing little regard or appreciation for the publishing and vetting process.

I say that as someone who has contributed to Wikipedia entries myself. Witnessing the process first hand makes me largely distrust it.

Actually, I didn't mean that I care who wrote/edited the Wiki page, but that you can follow through to the sources and decide for yourself if the entry is well-sourced or too biased. You certainly cannot do that with a print volume.

And I have been on the other side (anonymous reviewer to transportation and engineering journals) and it strikes me that traditional publishing is being put on a pedestal that it doesn't really deserve. Errors creep in from all sides, and Wiki is going to be able to catch and correct them more than a print version.

On a slightly related tangent, there is an interesting book on the "politics of expertise" by Frank Fischer -- Technocracy and the politics of expertise. (He cautions against listening too exclusively to technocrats.) Given how relentlessly and aggressively uninformed today's decision makers are, I suppose one might even wish for the bad old days when experts were given a bit too much (and certainly not always earned) respect.

Edited March 15, 2012 by ejp626

[Pete C]

I'm always finding misinformation in sources from "trusted" publishers.

[AfricaBrass]

When I was a boy, in the 1970's, I really wanted an encyclopedia but my parents didn't want to spend the money. The various grocery stores sold encyclopedias (not Britannica), they were usually on the endcap of an aisle by the checkout lines, and the "A" volume usually had a promotional price of a dollar or so. The other volumes were priced much higher. I ended up with a few "A" volumes since my parents decided to splurge on them for me over the years. I read those "A" volumes through a bunch of times. lol

I felt like Charlie Brown, I was a kid whose encyclopedia contained only the same three "A" volumes. I think I would have been a lot smarter if I could have got past "A".

[ejp626]

I felt like Charlie Brown, I was a kid whose encyclopedia contained only the same three "A" volumes. I think I would have been a lot smarter if I could have got past "A".

There's a good country song there just waiting to be writen.

It's weird, I loved spending time at the library (and actually volunteered there and then had a "real" or at least a paying job there while in high school). But I never felt the need to have encyclopedias at home -- maybe because I was at the library so much...

[Dave Garrett]

World Book used to (still does?) offer a set called Childcraft, which was a multi-volume set for younger kids that covered a wide variety of subjects, music, art, history, etc. We had those, too. They were cool.

Remember when parents actually wanted their kids to be smart and were willing to actually do things themselves to encourage it instead of just bitching that the schools suck?

I had Childcraft when I was younger and remember spending untold hours reading every volume, then later on we got World Book when I got old enough for a "real" encyclopedia. My parents still have the World Book set in the bookcase it came in, but the Childcraft set was on the bottom shelf and was lost when their house flooded during TS Allison.

[AfricaBrass]

I felt like Charlie Brown, I was a kid whose encyclopedia contained only the same three "A" volumes. I think I would have been a lot smarter if I could have got past "A".

There's a good country song there just waiting to be writen.

It's weird, I loved spending time at the library (and actually volunteered there and then had a "real" or at least a paying job there while in high school). But I never felt the need to have encyclopedias at home -- maybe because I was at the library so much...

There sure is! I'll be sure to use the word, "Drat!" in it.

I ended up spending a lot of time in the library when I was a kid. I did have a great dictionary and read through that a few times. It sure helped my vocabulary as an eight year old.